Just to clarify

Jess appeared in Grimmauld place with a barely audible pop, a sound which punctured the still air for a few seconds, before being repeated several times over, each little noise announcing the arrival of a member of the Order of the Phoenix.

It would have looked highly amusing, if not downright frightening, if not for that fact that it was the dead of night, and very little light seemed to penetrate the cloudy sky that hung above them.

Silently the small group moved as one to a location which could not be seen (for most people anyway) between nos. 10 and 14, and disappeared into the non-existent gap between buildings.

For the group itself, the experience was decidedly different however, with them entering a house visible only to them, rather than the space between one brick and another, as the muggles would have seen.

They walked into the house, noise finally filling the air, growing as each number of the part crossed the threshold and left the open, curious air of the square outside, and entered the kitchen, where they each took an appropriate seat.

"Well," said the man sitting at the head of the table, "That was an interesting experience, to say the least," he muttered, his mouth splitting into a slightly uneasy grin. "Tell me," said Jess, "How do you two feel about your assignment?" He asked one pair of people sitting at the table.

"In fact," he added, raising a single hand into the air as a thought occurred to him, "how do all of you feel about this whole business?" he asked, looking around at the group as a whole.

Robert waited a bit for his polyjuiced disguise to wear off but decided against taking any more time to change out of Angus's clothing. He and Michael reported to Grimmauld and walked in as Jess was speaking. Robert took a place towards the other end of the table. Michael conjured a couple of cups of Earl Grey and passed one to Robert, who merely nodded in thanks.

"Well," Robert said. "My thoughts are that my feelings are irrelevant. We have a job to do, and I think we need to get on with it. In my experience--and you all are free to do with your feelings what you will--but for me, when I have a bit of unpleasantness to deal with, as this is surely going to be, I am far more effective if I think less about my feelings and act more, when I know what the plan is."

The truth about it was that Robert had a great deal of thoughts, and he had some strong emotions about where they were going and about how this had all come about, but this was neither the time nor the place for it. Perhaps--once it was all overwith, however it turned out, there would be time for feelings. But that, he felt was not now, not here.

Jack nodded at Robert's words and agreed, saying, "I think Robert's right, though I may have not been the greatest example of that. I have a score I should've settled long before this day, but that'll have to wait." Her elbows reached onto the table and her fingers began massaging her temples as she quietly said, "Ne'Os is just so stupid."

She sighed and then shook her head, raising it and addressing Jess' first question. "I think we'll do the job well. I imagine I can work well with Silvyr and Aaron. This will get done as soon as possible. I'll have the two of them come to work with me as my interns, maybe even secure that with Polyjuice, and then we'll take a trip through the Ministry to find Mikaela- I have a bunch of reports to file everywhere as an excuse. We find her, Imperius her, and wait until the end of the day to lead her back here. We can formulate what exactly we want her to do from there." She paused. "Sound right?"

Silvyr sat on the far corner of the table, waiting to here what everyone had in mind before speaking up. He addressed Jack's comments openly. "If we make him think he has power then we don't have to listen to him B****." He paused for a moment. "Or come up with some other stop idea in an attempt to make himself sound strong." He had seen it before. Insecurity truly was a sad thing in his eyes.

The way he saw it was he didn't mind being apart of the plan either way. He addressed Jess this time. "I'm confident in Jack's skills and that she will lead this part of the plan well. Though I will not try to speak for that Aaron fellow, I do believe Jack and I will make a good team. Then again if tardiness is a normal thing with him then I hope we're not putting our trust in the wrong person." He made sure to leave it at that. He had to play somethings close to the chest, and his knowledge of Aaron was definitely one of them.

"Robert," Michael said. "You were silent at Satan's. As the rightful minister, you do have a right to speak up as to your opinion on the strategy." Then he remembered that some of the others were relatively new members who didn't know Robert. "For those of you who haven't kept up...Angus Donohue was never really Angus Donohue tonight. Robert and I felt like it was worth him defying the arrest warrant that Grindlewald has issued, so that he might come tonight and either give input or be part of the move to end things with Grindlewald and restore some sense of order. Just to fill in the blanks a bit the real Angus was kind enough to donate some of his hair as well as his clothes to Robert for the evening. Angus is a dedicated friend of the Order and he will fight with us when the time comes. For very obvious reasons, Jess, Khaat and Brian and Kate have remained in the safehouse for tonight, but they will all join the fight when it comes. It just was not necessary to empty the safehouse for this particular meeting." He looked at Robert, who merely took a sip of the large tea mug in his hand, saying nothing. Michael tried to hid the very slightest hint of a scowl on his face, wondering why Robert was largely offering a lack of talk and a readiness to simply "get on with it."

Jess shrugged and continued speaking when he realised that more answers would not be forthcoming. "I suppose that's the response I was expecting, I wont lie to you, however we've been through this already. I think you're about right Jack, as long as you keep the plan simple with as little relying on the unknown as possible, it can be pulled off well. You're right though Silvyr, Marcheti will need to up his game if he wants to be considered an asset to the mission," he replied nodding his head. He then frowned and shifted his weight to his other side, his brow furrowing and his head resting on his hands for a moment or two before he spoke.

"I don't have any intention of maintaining this alliance into the future, I hope you all know that," he added, shooting a quick glance around the table, "unless they plan on changing their ways... I highly doubt that however, and in all honesty, it is my belief that they need to answer for their injustices of the past," he told them, a small grin crossing his face before he relaxed a little.

"Do you have any idea of the time frame of the assault on your target?" he asked Jack and Silvyr, looking over at the pair

Jack felt uncomfortable, knowing both sides really had little intention to try hard for the alliance. She did not honestly believe it would or could last, but there was a certain lack of integrity when it seemed no one really wanted to even try. Jack pushed it aside. She felt out of place with both groups anyway, so why she should she care too much about their intentions?

Jess addressed her and she glanced at Silvyr, shrugging as she looked away to look back at Jess. "Sometime after the holidays, when work starts up. One of the first weekdays back. And it shouldn't take more than an hour or two to get her, if everything goes well and we don't run into any major obstacles."

A grin stretched across Jess' face for little more than a moment before he nodded and clasped his hands together. "Right," he exlaimed, "and what do you intend to do with her when the mission is accomplished?" He asked, looking first at Jack, then at the slightly quieter Silvyr. "Or perhaps it would be best to allow her to retain her freedom and only using her as an asset when needed," He suggested, shrugging a little as he inwardly cringed at his own brazen disregard for a human life.

"Give her to me," Robert said rather grimly. "You lot aren't necessarily geared to hold a prisoner, are you? And as far as that goes, the less you all know about that, the more secure we are--especially if one of us us caught and perhaps forced into some veritaserum. Its not that I don't trust you all, but, if we're reducing Grindlewald's key staff from his use, then we need to be perhaps overly cautious and strategic about how we do that. And since Grindlewald's already got me on the most wanted list, a couple more insurrections against him on my part will make very little difference." He didn't explain how he was going to contain Mikaela either, but it wasn't new ground for him.

"I suggest we keep her alive," he said. " She has valuable information and connections that we may well be able to use, under the proper conditions. Besides, we really don't need to start killing prematurely, do we? We get enough of a foul reputation when we don't kill. And the more of that we get, the more difficult it becomes for us to manuever successfully I suggest we try to do as little harm as we possible can until we have absolutely no other choice. If we have to eliminater her, then we will do as we must, but I do not believe we're at the point yet where we need to do that to one young girl. Not yet."

Jess frowned, his impatience getting the better of him for a moment as he blurted out a string of words before he could stop himself. "Haven't you been listening at all?" He asked, inwardly cursing himself the moment he spoke, knowing that his words would be taken as some sort of an attack.

"I've no qualms about her primary location shifting, however the plan is that we manipulate her in order to use her against Grindelwald and Forbes... the only situation I would have seen her death as being necessary is if she either got the jump on those who are suppressing her, or if she were to throw off our restraints whilst in our captivity," he explained, his voice a little softer now.

"Otherwise she will remain in our control, the question was more asking the point of whether or not we'd be keeping her under lock and key or force her to impersonate her general routine," he told the table.